Which state has the best runners? Well, it depends on what you mean by “best,” but according to this Runner’s World column, Oregon is #2 overall. We’re #1 in “runs per person.” Data comes from RunKeeper. (Why is Massachusetts #1? Well, RunKeeper is based in Boston, so you can do the math.)
* Do you get knee pain while running? If so, you might try altering your running posture so that you lean slightly forward, which might decrease stress on the knees.
* Forget about how old you in chronological terms. Here’s a story about “fitness age,” including a link so that you can calculate yours. (As pleased as I am to have a fitness age “of an average under 20 year old,” I suspect that the test overestimates the fitness age of endurance athletes like distance runners.)
* I’m not into obstacle course racing (unless, of course, the obstacles are tasty human survivors in one of those zombie runs), but I really liked Erin Beresini’s book, Off Course: Inside the Mad, Muddy World of Obstacle Course Racing, about the sport. It’s kind of like Born to Run for OCR, except I think I liked it better because she isn’t trying to sell one way to run the way that Christopher McDougall does. My review on Amazon.com can be found here.
* I thought this was a pretty interesting article in the Atlantic titled “Rich people exercise, poor people take diet pills.” It ties into this column at Fitocracy titled “Fitness is a skill.” What both of them have to with running in practice, as opposed to theory, is that running, at least in my experience, turns out not to be that cheap, even though you would think it should be. After all, you don’t have to buy equipment like racquets, balls, bats, shinguards, etc., just shoes. But oh boy can shoe costs add up! (It got to the point where I applied a bit of math/econ skillz to figuring out how to optimize use of my different types of shoes.) And then I discovered that while I am normally impervious to fashion trends (I wear suits when I teach, and T-shirts when I don’t), apparently I have trouble controlling myself when I’m around tech shirts or anything in the Columbia Sportwear outlet. And finally, race entry costs! Okay, so most of those aren’t necessary costs of running ….
* Advice on how to run a race while under-trained. The first suggestion is, “Don’t.” Ha ha ha!
* Which day of the week do people exercise the most on? According to Jawbone, it’s Monday. That’s usually my day with the most time spent working out, because I go for my long slow runs then. And, like many others, I do tend to slack off most on the weekends (unless there’s a race, of course), in the sense that if I take a full rest day, it’s almost always Saturday or Sunday.
* This is pretty funny — what running looks like on Instagram, and what it looks like in reality.
* I’m not alone in writing about bodyshaming and runners; Hannah McGoldrick, a Runner’s World editor (and coincidentally, the person who took the picture of Lauren Fleshman that I used for my column), writes about the thin-shaming that she endures.
